Digital terrestrial television launched in 370 towns of Kazakhstan

Digital terrestrial television has been launched in 370 towns of Kazakhstan, Tengrinews.kz reports from the Industrial Forum in Astana.

"Implementation of the terrestrial overground digital television has started in Kazakhstan. First of all a European standard was selected, DVB-T2 holds the most promise. At this stage this standard has been implemented in 370 towns with the total population of 3.5 million people. Thanks to implementation of this project, all Kazakhstan channels, including the regional ones, will be able to broadcast in the digital format. Our people will have the opportunity to receive a good strong signal," Kazakhstan Minister of Transport and Communications Askar Zhumagaliyev said.

He also added that new TV-channels will be able to broadcast in digital format straight away and gave an example of 24.kz channel that had been presented today and would start up on September 1.

Zhumagaliyev also told about the increasing number of users of Otau TV satellite television. "The number of users of satellite television has reached 150 thousand and this number keeps growing every day. Otau TV brand is becoming more and more popular," Zhumagaliyev said.

"Finally the whole territory of Kazakhstan will be covered with thesignals of the national TV-channels. This is a very important event in our contemporary history. I congratulate everyone on this event," President addressed Kazakhstan citizens.

Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Hamadoun Toure has congratulated Kazakhstan President from Geneva on the launch of the European-format digital television.

"Dear Nursultan Nazarbayev, I would like to congratulate you on the launch of the national terrestrial digital television in Kazakhstan. Over 100 countries of Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia have signed the Geneva-06 agreement. According to this agreement, digital terrestrial broadcasting starts in 2015. And we are welcoming Kazakhstan's overcoming of the digital gap between large cities and villages. Your country was one of the first to implement the new DVB-T2 standards. I am sure that Kazakhstan will successfully switch to the digital television," Toure said.

DVB-T2 is an extension of the television standard DVB-T devised for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television. This system transmits compressed digital audio, video, and other data in "physical layer pipes" (PLPs), using OFDM modulation with concatenated channel coding and interleaving. The higher offered bit rate, with respect to its predecessor DVB-T, makes it a suited system for carrying HDTV signals on the terrestrial TV channel.

It is currently broadcasting in the UK (Freeview HD, four channels), Italy (Europa 7 HD, twelve channels), Sweden (five channels), Serbia (10 SD and HD version of the public broadcaster’s channel RTS), Ukraine (32 SD and HD channels in four nationwide multiplexes), Denmark and some other countries.

Many CIS countries that signed Geneva-06 agreement initially selected DVB-T standard that allowed them broadcast 8 channels, but then started switching to DVB-T2 standard that makes it possible to broadcast up to 15 channels in only one multiplex.